Convoy rescue ship

During the Second World War designated convoy rescue ships accompanied some Atlantic convoys to rescue survivors from ships that had been attacked. Rescue ships were typically small freighters with passenger accommodation converted to rescue service. This involved enlarging galley and food storage areas and providing berthing and sanitary facilities for approximately 150 men. Preparation for service included the installation of scrambling nets along the sides, and the substitution of boats suitable for open sea work for normal lifeboats. Rescue ships normally included a small operating room for an embarked naval doctor and sick bay staff.[1]

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The first specially-equipped rescue ship went into service in January 1941. When rescue ships were unavailable, large, ocean-going tugboats or converted trawlers were sometimes designated to perform rescue duty.[2]

By the end of the war 30 rescue ships had been built or converted. They participated in 797 convoys and rescued 4,194 survivors from 119 ships. Six rescue ships were lost, five to enemy action (three to U-boats and two to aircraft).

In 1940 Admiral Sir Max Kennedy Horton (later Commander-in-Chief Western Approaches Command) broached the concept of rescue ships with the Admiralty. The concept was to have merchant vessels that would accompany convoys but not carry cargo; they would instead have the role of saving the lives of seamen from ships sunk by enemy action. The rescue ship would take its position at the rear of one of the central columns of ships.[1] From this position it could observe damaged ships falling astern of the convoy and quickly rendezvous to transfer survivors. The rescue ships would also be able to provide surgical or other treatment as required. This would free the cargo vessels of the convoy to continue on their way, and escorts to focus on countering the attacking U-boats or aircraft.

The convoy rescue ship was a response to early experience. Each merchant ship in a convoy was assigned a station so that the convoy formation would consist of several columns of three to five ships. The lead ships of the columns were spaced at intervals of 1,000 yards (910 m) along a line perpendicular to the convoy course. Each ship in the column followed the ship ahead at a distance of 800 yards (730 m).[3] The typical convoy would be approximately 8 to 10 kilometers (5.0 to 6.2 mi) wide and 3 kilometers (1.9 mi) long. The rescue plan for early convoys was to have the last ship of each column rescue survivors of other ships in that column.[4] If the last ship in column was hit, the rescue task fell to the escorting warships. In practice, the escorting warships performed rescue tasks more often than the 25% suggested by random hits on a four-ship column because some merchant ships refused to leave the protection of the convoy formation to fall back and remain a stationary target while rescuing survivors. Furthermore, merchant ships were not well suited to maneuver to pick up survivors, and those attempting rescue were hampered by lack of suitable rescue equipment.

For the role the Admiralty sought out small, quick, manoeuvrable vessels; it drew many from among the Clyde Shipping Company's coastal passenger transports. The requisitioned passenger ships had a speed of 11 to 12 knots, which enabled them, after completing their rescue operations, to catch up with the convoys travelling at 10 knots. Although these vessels had not been built for the Atlantic or the Arctic, none was lost to Atlantic storms; one did ice-up and founder off the coast of Newfoundland.

The rescue ships were not hospital ships and so were legitimate targets as far as German submarines or bombers were concerned. Consequently, the Admiralty armed them with AA guns for protection when they were separated from the convoy and vulnerable to enemy attack. In addition to equipment for rescuing and treating survivors, rescue ships carried High Frequency radio Direction Finding equipment (abbreviated to HF/DF and known as "Huff-Duff") to assist in the location of U-boats.[1] The rescue ship's position at the rear of the convoy provided good triangulation in combination with the HF/DF installed on the escort leader typically patrolling in front of the convoy.

Perth 2258 tons, built 1915, in rescue service from 5 May 1941, sailed with 60 convoys, rescued 455 survivors.

Pinto 1346 tons, built 1928, in rescue service from 12 May 1942, sailed with 10 convoys, rescued 2 survivors, sunk with loss of 16 crewmen by U-482 8 September 1944 while assigned to convoy HX-305.

Rathlin 1599 tons, built 1936, in rescue service from 2 October 1941, sailed with 47 convoys, including Convoy PQ-17, rescued 634 survivors.[8]

St Clair 1636 tons, built 1937, in rescue service from 1 July 1944, sailed with 14 convoys.

St Sunniva 1368 tons, built 1931, in rescue service from 7 December 1942, sailed with convoy ON-158 and probably capsized from topside ice 23 January 1943. There were no survivors from the crew of 64.

Stockport 1683 tons, built 1911, in rescue service from 22 October 1941, sailed with 16 convoys (including Convoy SC-107), rescued 413 survivors, sunk by U-604 23 February 1943 while assigned to Convoy ON-166. There were no survivors from the crew of 63 and survivors previously rescued from other ships.[9]

Syrian Prince 1989 tons, built 1936, in rescue service from 18 November 1943, sailed with 19 convoys.

Tjaldur 1130 tons, built 1916, in rescue service from 26 October 1941, sailed with 3 convoys, withdrawn from rescue service December 1941.

Toward 1571 tons, built 1923, in rescue service from 24 October 1941, sailed with 45 convoys, rescued 337 survivors, sunk by U-402 7 February 1943 while assigned to Convoy SC-118. Two survivors and 54 crewmen were lost.[10]

Walmer Castle 906 tons, built 1936, in rescue service from 12 September 1941, sailed with convoy OG-74 and rescued 81 survivors before being sunk by Focke-Wulf Fw 200 aircraft of I/KG 40 on 21 September 1941. Eleven crewmen and 20 of the survivors were lost.[11]

Zaafaran 1567 tons, built 1921, in rescue service from 23 March 1941, sailed with 26 convoys, rescued 220 survivors, sunk by aircraft with loss of one crewman during the battle of Convoy PQ-17 on 5 July 1942.[8]

Zamalek 1565 tons, built 1921, in rescue service from 26 February 1941, sailed with 68 convoys, including Convoy PQ-17 and Convoy SC-130, rescued 665 survivors. Also participated in QP14.[8]

1.
Battle of the Atlantic
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The Battle of the Atlantic was the longest continuous military campaign in World War II, running from 1939 to the defeat of Germany in 1945. At its core was the Allied naval blockade of Germany, announced the day after the declaration of war and it was at its height from mid-1940 through to the end of 1943. The convoys, coming mainly from North America and predominantly going to the United Kingdom and these forces were aided by ships and aircraft of the United States from September 13,1941. The Germans were joined by submarines of the Italian Royal Navy after their Axis ally Italy entered the war on June 10,1940, as an island nation, the United Kingdom was highly dependent on imported goods. Britain required more than a million tons of imported material per week in order to be able to survive and fight. In essence, the Battle of the Atlantic was a war, the Allied struggle to supply Britain. From 1942 onwards, the Axis also sought to prevent the build-up of Allied supplies, the defeat of the U-boat threat was a pre-requisite for pushing back the Axis. The outcome of the battle was a victory for the Allies—the German blockade failed—but at great cost,3,500 merchant ships and 175 warships were sunk for the loss of 783 U-boats. The name Battle of the Atlantic was coined by Winston Churchill in February 1941 and it has been called the longest, largest, and most complex naval battle in history. The campaign started immediately after the European war began, during the so-called Phoney War and it involved thousands of ships in more than 100 convoy battles and perhaps 1,000 single-ship encounters, in a theatre covering millions of square miles of ocean. The Allies gradually gained the hand, overcoming German surface raiders by the end of 1942 and defeating the U-boats by mid-1943. The first meeting of the Cabinets Battle of the Atlantic Committee was on March 19, Churchill claimed to have coined the phrase Battle of the Atlantic shortly before Alexanders speech, but there are several examples of earlier usage. Following the use of unrestricted submarine warfare by Germany in the First World War, countries tried to limit, even abolish, the effort failed. or active resistance to visit or search. This made restrictions on submarines effectively moot, in 1939, the Kriegsmarine lacked the strength to challenge the combined British Royal Navy and French Navy for command of the sea. Instead, German naval strategy relied on commerce raiding using capital ships, armed merchant cruisers, submarines and these ships immediately attacked British and French shipping. U-30 sank the ocean liner SS Athenia within hours of the declaration of war—in breach of her orders not to sink passenger ships, much of the early German anti-shipping activity involved minelaying by destroyers, aircraft and U-boats off British ports. With the outbreak of war, the British and French immediately began a blockade of Germany, the Royal Navy quickly introduced a convoy system for the protection of trade that gradually extended out from the British Isles, eventually reaching as far as Panama, Bombay and Singapore. Convoys allowed the Royal Navy to concentrate its escorts near the one place the U-boats were guaranteed to be found, each convoy consisted of between 30 and 70 mostly unarmed merchant ships

2.
Galley (kitchen)
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The galley is the compartment of a ship, train, or aircraft where food is cooked and prepared. It can also refer to a kitchen on a naval base. A galley is the kitchen aboard a vessel, usually laid out in an efficient typical style with longitudinal units and this makes the best use of the usually limited space aboard ships. It also caters for the rolling and heaving nature of ships, for this reason galley stoves are often gimballed, so that the liquid in pans does not spill out. They are also equipped with bars, preventing the cook from falling against the hot stove. A small kitchen on deck was called a caboose or camboose, originating from the Dutch, kombuis, in English it is a defunct term used only for a cooking area that is abovedecks. The Douglas Aircraft DC-3 was the first airplane with a galley for food service. Aircraft in operation today mainly use the airline service trolley system. The first airplane kitchen was invented by Werner Sell of Germany in 1930, in 1955 Sell also began fitting train coaches with kitchens, from 1960 on with the newly developed convection oven. Such kitchens increase storage space by working vertically, with hanging pots, dish racks, strictly, the term refers to a kitchen with the units in two facing lines, but is often used to refer to U-shaped kitchens as well. 10,000 units were installed in Frankfurt, and it was the most successful, Chief cook Chief steward Stewards assistant

3.
Tugboat
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A tug is a boat or ship that maneuvers vessels by pushing or towing them. Tugboats are powerful for their size and strongly built, and some are ocean-going, some tugboats serve as icebreakers or salvage boats. Early tugboats had steam engines, but today most have diesel engines, many tugboats have firefighting monitors, allowing them to assist in firefighting, especially in harbors. Seagoing tugs fall into four categories, The standard seagoing tug with model bow that tows its payload on a hawser. The notch tug which can be secured in a notch at the stern of a specially designed barge and this configuration is dangerous to use with a barge which is in ballast or in a head- or following sea. Therefore, notch tugs are usually built with a towing winch and these units stay combined under virtually any sea conditions and the tugs usually have poor sea-keeping designs for navigation without their barges attached. Vessels in this category are considered to be ships rather than tugboats. These vessels must show navigation lights compliant with those required of ships rather than required of tugboats. Articulated tug and barge units also utilize mechanical means to connect to their barges, the tug slips into a notch in the stern and is attached by a hinged connection. ATBs generally utilize Intercon and Bludworth connecting systems, aTBs are generally staffed as a large tugboat, with between seven and nine crew members. The typical American ATB operating on the east coast customarily displays navigational lights of a towing vessel pushing ahead, compared to seagoing tugboats, harbour tugboats are generally smaller and their width-to-length ratio is often higher, due to the need for a lower draught. In smaller harbours these are also termed lunch bucket boats, because they are only manned when needed and only at a minimum. The number of tugboats in a harbour varies with the harbour infrastructure, things to take into consideration includes ships with/without bow thrusters and forces like wind, current and waves and types of ship. River tugs are also referred to as towboats or pushboats and their hull designs would make open ocean operation dangerous. River tugs usually do not have any significant hawser or winch and their hulls feature a flat front or bow to line up with the rectangular stern of the barge, often with large pushing knees. Tugboat engines typically produce 500 to 2,500 kW, for safety, tugboats engines often feature two of each critical part for redundancy. A tugboats power is stated by its engines horsepower and its overall bollard pull. The largest commercial harbour tugboats in the 2000s-2010s, used for towing container ships or similar, had around 60-65 tons of bollard pull, Tugboats are highly maneuverable, and various propulsion systems have been developed to increase maneuverability and increase safety

4.
Convoy
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A convoy is a group of vehicles, typically motor vehicles or ships, traveling together for mutual support and protection. Often, a convoy is organized with armed defensive support and it may also be used in a non-military sense, for example when driving through remote areas. Arriving at the scene of an emergency with a well-ordered unit. Naval convoys have been in use for centuries, with examples of merchant ships traveling under naval protection dating to the 12th century, the use of organized naval convoys dates from when ships began to be separated into specialist classes and national navies were established. By the French Revolutionary Wars of the late 18th century, effective naval tactics had been developed to ward off pirates. Some convoys contained several hundred merchant ships, the most enduring system of convoys were the Spanish treasure fleets, that sailed from the 1520s until 1790. When merchant ships sailed independently, a privateer could cruise a shipping lane, ships sailing in convoy presented a much smaller target, a convoy was as hard to find as a single ship. As a result of the convoy systems effectiveness, wartime insurance premiums were consistently lower for ships that sailed in convoys, losses of ships travelling out of convoy however were so high that no merchant ship was allowed to sail unescorted. In the early 20th century, the changed the balance of power in convoy battles. Steaming faster than merchant ships and firing at long ranges, a battleship could destroy many ships in a convoy before the others could scatter over the horizon. To protect a convoy against a ship required providing it with an escort of another capital ship. Battleships were the reason that the British Admiralty did not adopt convoy tactics at the start of the first Battle of the Atlantic in World War I. But the German capital ships had been bottled up in the North Sea, the Admiralty took a long time to respond to this change in the tactical position, and in April 1917 convoy was trialled, before being officially introduced in the Atlantic in September 1917. Other arguments against convoy were raised, further, large convoys were thought to overload port resources. Actual analysis of shipping losses in World War I disproved all these arguments, at least so far as they applied to transatlantic, ships sailing in convoys were far less likely to be sunk, even when not provided with any escort at all. The loss of productivity due to delays was small compared with the loss of productivity due to ships being sunk. Ports could deal more easily with convoys because they tended to arrive on schedule, Convoy duty also exposes the escorting warships to the sometimes hazardous conditions of the North Atlantic, with only rare occurrences of visible achievement. The British adopted a system, initially voluntary and later compulsory for almost all merchant ships

5.
Admiralty
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The new Admiralty Board meets only twice a year, and the day-to-day running of the Royal Navy is controlled by a Navy Board. It is common for the authorities now in charge of the Royal Navy to be referred to as simply The Admiralty. The title of Lord High Admiral of the United Kingdom was vested in the monarch from 1964 to 2011, the title was awarded to Philip, Duke of Edinburgh by Queen Elizabeth II on his 90th birthday. There also continues to be a Vice-Admiral of the United Kingdom, the office of Admiral of England was created around 1400 although there had already been Admirals of the Northern and Western Seas. In 1546, King Henry VIII established the Council of the Marine, later to become the Navy Board, operational control of the Royal Navy remained the responsibility of the Lord High Admiral, who was one of the nine Great Officers of State. In 1628, Charles I put the office of Lord High Admiral into commission, the office of Lord High Admiral passed a number of times in and out of commission until 1709 after which the office was almost permanently in commission. In 1831, the first Navy Board was abolished as a separate entity, in 1964, the Admiralty along with the War Office and the Air Ministry as separate departments of state were abolished, and re-emerged under one single new Ministry of Defence. Within the expanded Ministry of Defence are the new Admiralty Board which has a separate Navy Board responsible for the running of the Royal Navy. The Army Board and the Air Force Board, each headed by the Secretary of State for Defence, the Board of Admiralty consisted of a number of Lords Commissioners of the Admiralty. The Lords Commissioners were always a mixture of admirals, known as Naval Lords or Sea Lords and Civil Lords, the quorum of the Board was two commissioners and a secretary. The president of the Board was known as the First Lord of the Admiralty, after 1806, the First Lord of the Admiralty was always a civilian while the professional head of the navy came to be known as the First Sea Lord. The first real concerted effort to organise the Admiralty was started by Henry VIII. Between 1860 and 1908 there was no study of strategy and of staff work conducted within the naval service. All the navys talent flowed to the great technical universitys and it was perceived by officials within the Admiralty at this time that the running of war was quite a simple matter for any flag officer who required no formal training. The new War Staff had hardly found its feet and it struggled with the opposition to its existence by senior officers they were categorically opposed to a staff. The deficiencies of the system within this department of state could be seen in the conduct of the Dardanelles campaign, there was no mechanisms in place to answer the big strategic questions in 1914 a Trade Division was created. In 1916, Sir John Jellicoe came to the Admiralty, he organized the staff as following, Chief of War Staff, Operations, Intelligence, Signal Section, Mobilization, Trade. This for the first time gave the naval staff direct representation on the Board, the would direct all operations and movements of the fleet, while the would be responsible for mercantile movements and anti-submarine operations

6.
U-boat
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U-boat is the anglicised version of the German word U-Boot, a shortening of Unterseeboot, literally undersea boat. While the German term refers to any submarine, the English one refers specifically to military submarines operated by Germany, particularly in the First and Second World Wars. Although at times they were efficient fleet weapons against enemy warships, they were most effectively used in an economic warfare role. Austro-Hungarian navy submarines were known as U-boats. The first submarine built in Germany, the three-man Brandtaucher, sank to the bottom of Kiel harbor on 1 February 1851 during a test dive, the inventor and engineer Wilhelm Bauer had designed this vessel in 1850, and Schweffel & Howaldt constructed it in Kiel. Dredging operations in 1887 rediscovered Brandtaucher, it was raised and put on display in Germany, there followed in 1890 the boats WW1 and WW2, built to a Nordenfelt design. The SM U-1 was a completely redesigned Karp-class submarine and only one was built, the Imperial German Navy commissioned it on 14 December 1906. It had a hull, a Körting kerosene engine. The 50%-larger SM U-2 had two torpedo tubes, the U-19 class of 1912–13 saw the first diesel engine installed in a German navy boat. At the start of World War I in 1914, Germany had 48 submarines of 13 classes in service or under construction, during that war the Imperial German Navy used SM U-1 for training. Retired in 1919, it remains on display at the Deutsches Museum in Munich, on 5 September 1914, HMS Pathfinder was sunk by SM U-21, the first ship to have been sunk by a submarine using a self-propelled torpedo. On 22 September, U-9 sank the obsolete British warships HMS Aboukir, HMS Cressy, for the first few months of the war, U-boat anticommerce actions observed the prize rules of the time, which governed the treatment of enemy civilian ships and their occupants. On 20 October 1914, SM U-17 sank the first merchant ship, surface commerce raiders were proving to be ineffective, and on 4 February 1915, the Kaiser assented to the declaration of a war zone in the waters around the British Isles. This was cited as a retaliation for British minefields and shipping blockades, under the instructions given to U-boat captains, they could sink merchant ships, even potentially neutral ones, without warning. In February 1915, a submarine U-6 was rammed and both periscopes were destroyed off Beachy Head by the collier SS Thordis commanded by Captain John Bell RNR after firing a torpedo, on 7 May 1915, SM U-20 sank the liner RMS Lusitania. The sinking claimed 1,198 lives,128 of them American civilians, munitions that it carried were thousands of crates full of ammunition for rifles, 3-inch artillery shells, and also various other standard ammunition used by infantry. The sinking of the Lusitania was widely used as propaganda against the German Empire, a widespread reaction in the U. S was not seen until the sinking of the ferry SS Sussex. The sinking occurred in 1915 and the United States entered the war in 1917, the initial U. S. response was to threaten to sever diplomatic ties, which persuaded the Germans to issue the Sussex pledge that reimposed restrictions on U-boat activity

7.
Aircraft
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An aircraft is a machine that is able to fly by gaining support from the air. It counters the force of gravity by using either static lift or by using the lift of an airfoil. The human activity that surrounds aircraft is called aviation, crewed aircraft are flown by an onboard pilot, but unmanned aerial vehicles may be remotely controlled or self-controlled by onboard computers. Aircraft may be classified by different criteria, such as type, aircraft propulsion, usage. Each of the two World Wars led to technical advances. Consequently, the history of aircraft can be divided into five eras, Pioneers of flight, first World War,1914 to 1918. Aviation between the World Wars,1918 to 1939, Second World War,1939 to 1945. Postwar era, also called the jet age,1945 to the present day, aerostats use buoyancy to float in the air in much the same way that ships float on the water. They are characterized by one or more large gasbags or canopies, filled with a relatively low-density gas such as helium, hydrogen, or hot air, which is less dense than the surrounding air. When the weight of this is added to the weight of the aircraft structure, a balloon was originally any aerostat, while the term airship was used for large, powered aircraft designs – usually fixed-wing. In 1919 Frederick Handley Page was reported as referring to ships of the air, in the 1930s, large intercontinental flying boats were also sometimes referred to as ships of the air or flying-ships. – though none had yet been built, the advent of powered balloons, called dirigible balloons, and later of rigid hulls allowing a great increase in size, began to change the way these words were used. Huge powered aerostats, characterized by an outer framework and separate aerodynamic skin surrounding the gas bags, were produced. There were still no fixed-wing aircraft or non-rigid balloons large enough to be called airships, then several accidents, such as the Hindenburg disaster in 1937, led to the demise of these airships. Nowadays a balloon is an aerostat and an airship is a powered one. A powered, steerable aerostat is called a dirigible, sometimes this term is applied only to non-rigid balloons, and sometimes dirigible balloon is regarded as the definition of an airship. Non-rigid dirigibles are characterized by a moderately aerodynamic gasbag with stabilizing fins at the back and these soon became known as blimps. During the Second World War, this shape was adopted for tethered balloons, in windy weather

8.
Warship
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A warship is a naval ship that is built and primarily intended for naval warfare. Usually they belong to the forces of a state. As well as being armed, warships are designed to damage and are usually faster. Unlike a merchant ship, which carries cargo, a warship typically carries weapons, ammunition. Warships usually belong to a navy, though they have also operated by individuals, cooperatives. In wartime, the distinction between warships and merchant ships is often blurred, in war, merchant ships are often armed and used as auxiliary warships, such as the Q-ships of the First World War and the armed merchant cruisers of the Second World War. Until the 17th century it was common for merchant ships to be pressed into naval service, until the threat of piracy subsided in the 19th century, it was normal practice to arm larger merchant ships such as galleons. Warships have also often used as troop carriers or supply ships. The development of catapults in the 4th century BC and the subsequent refinement of technology enabled the first fleets of artillery-equipped warships by the Hellenistic age. During late antiquity, ramming fell out of use and the galley tactics against other ships used during the Middle Ages until the late 16th century focused on boarding. Naval artillery was redeveloped in the 14th century, but cannon did not become common at sea until the guns were capable of being reloaded quickly enough to be reused in the same battle. The size of a required to carry a large number of cannons made oar-based propulsion impossible. The sailing man-of-war emerged during the 16th century, by the middle of the 17th century, warships were carrying increasing numbers of cannon on their broadsides and tactics evolved to bring each ships firepower to bear in a line of battle. The man-of-war now evolved into the ship of the line, in the 18th century, the frigate and sloop-of-war – too small to stand in the line of battle – evolved to convoy trade, scout for enemy ships and blockade enemy coasts. During the 19th century a revolution took place in the means of propulsion, naval armament. Marine steam engines were introduced, at first as an auxiliary force, the Crimean War gave a great stimulus to the development of guns. The introduction of explosive shells soon led to the introduction of iron, the first ironclad warships, the French Gloire and British Warrior, made wooden vessels obsolete. Metal soon entirely replaced wood as the material for warship construction

9.
Focke-Wulf Fw 200 Condor
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The Focke-Wulf Fw 200 Condor, also known as Kurier to the Allies was a German all-metal four-engined monoplane originally developed by Focke-Wulf as a long-range airliner. The Luftwaffe also made use of the Fw 200 as a transport. It achieved success as a commerce raider before the advent of long-range RAF Coastal Command aircraft, the Fw 200 resulted from a proposal by Kurt Tank of Focke-Wulf to Dr. Rudolf Stuessel of Deutsche Lufthansa to develop a landplane to carry passengers across the Atlantic Ocean to the USA. At that time this was unusual, as airlines used seaplanes on long over-water routes, to fly long distances economically, the Fw 200 was designed to cruise at an altitude of over 3,000 m - as high as possible without a pressure cabin. Existing airliners were designed to cruise at altitudes below 5,000 feet, the Fw 200 was briefly the worlds most modern airliner, until other high-altitude airliners started operating, the Boeing 307 in 1940 and the Douglas DC-4 in 1942. The designation Condor was chosen because, like the condor bird, Deutsche Lufthansa issued a specification in June 1936 after discussions between Tank, Dr. Stüssel and Carl August von Gablenz. The plane was designed by Ludwig Mittelhuber with Wilhelm Bansemir as project director, the first prototype, the Fw 200 V1, made its first flight after just over one year of development on 27 July 1937 with Kurt Tank at the controls. It was an all-metal, four-engined monoplane powered by four American 875 hp Pratt & Whitney Hornet radial engines, two further prototypes were powered by German 720 hp BMW 132G-1 radials. The Japanese Navy requested a version of the Fw 200 for search and patrol duties. This Fw 200 was held in Germany because war had broken out in Europe by that time and this aircraft became the basis for all later military models used by the Luftwaffe. The extra weight introduced by its military fitments meant that a number of early Fw 200 aircraft broke up on landing, later models were equipped with Lorenz FuG200 Hohentwiel low UHF-band ASV radar in the nose. In 1943 a version entered service that could carry the Henschel Hs 293 guided missile, the Fw 200 was operated by Deutsche Lufthansa, DDL Danish Airlines and Lufthansas Brazilian subsidiary Syndicato Condor. Dai Nippon KK of Japan also ordered Fw 200 airliners and these could not be delivered to Japan once the war began, so they were delivered to Deutsche Lufthansa instead. On 14 April 1945 an Fw 200 flew Lufthansas last scheduled service before the end of World War II, other airlines continued to operate the Fw 200 after the end of World War II. The first prototype, the Fw 200 V1, upgraded with extra tanks and redesignated Fw 200 S-1. It was the first heavier-than-air craft to fly nonstop between Berlin and New York City, making the flight from Berlin-Staaken to Floyd Bennett Field on 10/11 August 1938 in 24 hours and 56 minutes, the return trip on 13 August 1938 took 19 hours and 47 minutes. These flights are commemorated with a plaque in Böttcherstraße, a street in Bremen, beginning on 28 November 1938 it flew from Berlin to Tokyo via Basra, Karachi and Hanoi. Original film footage of his arrival shows his aircraft bearing the German civil registration of D-ACVH, a Danish-owned Fw 200 aircraft named Dania was seized by the British on English soil after Denmark was invaded by German forces in 1940

10.
Naval ship
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A naval ship is a military ship used by a navy. Naval ships are differentiated from civilian ships by construction and purpose, generally, naval ships are damage resilient and armed with weapon systems, though armament on troop transports is light or non-existent. Naval ships designed primarily for naval warfare are termed warships, as opposed to support or shipyard operations, submarine – self-propelled submersible types regardless of whether they are employed as combatant, auxiliary, or research and development vehicles which have at least a residual combat capability. Amphibious warfare – ships having organic capability for amphibious assault and which have characteristics enabling long duration operations on the high seas, combat logistics – ships that have the capability to provide underway replenishment to fleet units. Mine warfare – ships whose primary function is mine warfare on the high seas, coastal defense – ships whose primary function is coastal patrol and interdiction. Sealift – ships that have the capability to provide material support to other deployed units operating far from home base. Support – ships, such as oilers, designed to operate in the ocean in a variety of sea states to provide general support to either combatant forces or shore based establishments. Service type craft – navy-subordinated craft designed to provide support to either combatant forces or shore-based establishments. In rough order of tonnage, modern naval ships are commonly divided into the following different classes. There is also much blurring / gray areas between the classes, depending on their use, history, and interpretation of the class by different navies. Official Website of the United States Navy, heres the Entire U. S. Navy Fleet in One Chart. Official Website of the United States Navy, *United States Naval Recognition Training Slides-Grand Valley State University Archives and Special Collections

The Admiralty, originally known as the Office of the Admiralty and Marine Affairs, was the government department …

Board of admiralty about 1810.

The Admiralty complex in 1794. The colours indicate departments or residences for the several Lords of the Admiralty. The pale coloured extension behind the small courtyard, on the left is Admiralty House.

The Admiralty Extension (which is also one of the two buildings which are sometimes referred to as the "Old Admiralty") dates from the turn of the 20th century.

Dutch "kazemat", part of the kornwerderzand fortifications at the Afsluitdijk. In May 1940, during the battle of the Afsluitdijk, this was the only place in Western Europe where the German blitzkrieg was stopped and where the Germans had to retreat. Only after the port city of Rotterdam was bombed on the 14th of May did the fortifications surrender.

An aircraft carrier is a warship that serves as a seagoing airbase, equipped with a full-length flight deck and …

Image: Fleet 5 nations

The Royal Navy's HMS ''Ark Royal'' in 1939, with Swordfish biplane fighters passing overhead. The British aircraft carrier was involved in the crippling of the German battleship the ''Bismarck'' in May 1941